JP3345902B2 - Ejection document identification device for printer - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a technique for distinguishing a plurality of documents discharged from a printer and stacked on a stacker for each document.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A printer is connected to one or more host computers, and receives various print information from each host computer to print various documents. In this case, the print documents discharged from the printer are simply stacked on a discharge tray provided in the printer.

[0003]

According to the prior art, various documents discharged from a printer are simply stacked on a paper output tray, so that a user can store a desired document on the paper output tray. You have to find it out of the stack of documents.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to make it possible to identify each document at a glance on a paper discharge tray, thereby eliminating the trouble of a user searching for a desired document from a pile of discharged documents.

[0005]

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a discharged document identifying apparatus which receives print information from a host computer, and selects one type of paper selected from a plurality of types of paper prepared in advance. When the print information is received in a document identification device of a printer that prints a document according to the print information and discharges the printed sheet to a predetermined discharge location, a new document unit is A document unit detecting unit for checking whether or not to start, and when the result of the check is affirmative, before executing the document printing according to the print information, selecting one type of paper as the partition paper from the plurality of types of paper. A partition paper supply means for feeding the paper information and discharging the paper to the paper discharge location, and a host identification means for identifying a host computer which has transmitted the print information when receiving the print information. And storing the host identification information predetermined for each host computer, from the storage means, and from the host identification information stored in the storage means, to the host computer identified by the host identification means. Identification information printing means for selecting the corresponding host identification information and printing it on the fed partition paper, wherein the document unit detection means receives an interface receiving the print information and receives the previous print information. If the interfaces are different, it is determined that the start of a new document unit is started. If they are the same interface, the document unit added to the print information is deleted. It is characterized by determining whether or not the start of a new document unit is based on a predetermined header code for indicating.

In this case, the partition sheet supply means selects a sheet having a size larger than both the sheet size used for the previous document printing and the sheet size used for the current document printing as the partition sheet. You may. On the other hand, the partition paper supply unit may select one predetermined type of paper from among the plurality of types of paper as the partition paper.

[0007]

When print information is input to a printer, it is checked whether or not the print information is the start of a new document unit. As a result, if a new document unit is started, before printing the document, Information for identifying the host computer is printed on a selected type of paper, fed to a printer as partition paper, and discharged to a predetermined paper discharge location.
Thereafter, document printing according to the print information is executed. Therefore, between multiple units of documents stacked at the paper output location,
The partition paper is inserted, and the user can distinguish each document unit by the partition paper. Further, the user can easily identify his or her own document by the information for identifying the host computer printed on the partition paper.

[0008]

FIG. 1 shows an overall configuration of an embodiment of a page printer to which the present invention is applied.

In FIG. 1, a page printer 1 is connected to three host computers 3a, 3b, 3c. Each of the host computers 3a, 3b, 3c generates print information, adds a header code 23 to the print information 21 as shown in FIG. This print information is received by the image controller 7 in the printer 1 via the communication interfaces 5a, 5b, 5c, respectively.

Here, the print information may include a document to be printed ending with one page, or may include several tens of pages, and may include a plurality of copies of the same document simultaneously. The header code is a keyword for causing the image controller 7 of the printer 1 to recognize the total number of pages to be printed as one document unit. In order for each of the host computers 3a, 3b, and 3c to add a header code to the print information and for the image controller 7 of the printer 1 to recognize one document unit, the host computer 3a, 3b, and 3c need It is necessary to set a common keyword used as a header code in both the printer 1 and the printer 1 in advance. Each host computer 3a, 3
The method of setting the header code in b and 3c is as follows.
One way is to set using application software.If the setting cannot be made using application software, attach hardware that has the function of adding a header code to the print information and sending it to the printer. There is a method of storing a header code. On the other hand, on the printer 1 side, the same keyword as the header code of each of the host computers 3a, 3b, 3c is stored in the image controller 7 in advance.

A control panel 8 manually operated by a user is connected to an image controller 7 in the printer 1. The image controller 7 performs various operations required for printing, such as an image of a character to be printed, a sheet size, and a printing position on a sheet, in accordance with print information received from the host computers 3a, 3b, and 3c and input data from the control panel 8. Information data (hereinafter collectively referred to as control data) is created and provided to the engine controller 9.

The engine controller 9 receives the control data and drives the print engine 11 to control its operation. The print engine 11 is a mechanical part for performing printing. Specifically, the print engine 11 selects a sheet, supplies the selected sheet, conveys the supplied sheet, prints on the conveyed sheet, and performs printing. It is composed of mechanisms for discharging used paper and the like, and these mechanisms are placed under the control of the engine controller 9.

The print engine 11 has three paper feed trays 13a, 13b and 13c, from which paper 15a, 15b and 15c of different sizes can be supplied into the engine. Further, a paper discharge tray 17 is provided to receive the printed paper 19 discharged outside the engine, and the discharged printed paper 19 is stacked on the paper discharge tray 17.

It should be noted that since well-known appropriate ones can be used for the engine controller 7 and the print engine 11, the description of the configuration is omitted.

This embodiment is characterized by the processing performed by the image controller 7. This processing will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

One of the host computers 3a, 3
When the print information with the header code is input from b and 3c (step S1), first, it is identified through which interface the print information is input, in other words, from which host computer the print information is issued. (Step S2). Since the host computers 3a, 3b, 3c and the interfaces 5a, 5b, 5c are connected in a peer-to-peer relationship, by identifying from which interface the received print information is input, the host as the transmission source is identified. Computer can be identified.

Next, the size of the paper to be used is recognized from the print command or input data from the control panel (step S3).

The order in which print information enters the image controller 7 is determined by the host computer 3a, 3b,
3c. This print information may come in continuously from the same host computer or may come in randomly from each host computer. Therefore, as a next step, the image controller 7 checks whether the print information received this time is transmitted from the same host computer as the print information received last time or transmitted from another host computer (step S4). ). This can be done by comparing the identification result of the current print information in step S2 with that of the previous print information.

If the result of this check is that there is no change in the host computer, it is next checked whether or not a header code has been added to the received print information (step S).
5). If there is a header code, it means that this print information is in a different document unit from the previous one, that is, it is the start of a new document unit, and if there is no header code, it is This means that the current print information is included in the same document unit as the previous one, that is, it is in the middle of the document unit continuing from the previous one.

On the other hand, as a result of the check in step S4,
If there is a change in the host computer, it is possible to know that the current print information is the start of a new document unit without having to check for the presence or absence of a header code.

When such a check shows that the current print information is the start of a new document unit, the new document to be printed is then distinguished from the previous document that has already been printed. The process for placing the partition paper on the printed paper of the previous document placed on the paper output tray 17 is started. At this time, if the process is entered from step S4, first, step S6 of selecting a host identification character is performed. On the other hand, when the process is entered from step S5, since the host identification character has already been selected at the time of the previous host computer change, the already selected host identification character is used again this time. Step S6 is passed.

Here, the host identification character is a predetermined character for each host computer to be printed on a partition sheet, and a user of each host computer can identify his / her own document by viewing the character. It is to make. For example, the alphabet,
Any character that can be distinguished, such as a number, a graphic, or a predetermined mark at a different printing position, may be used. This host identification character is predetermined for each host computer and stored in the image controller 7. In step S6, a character corresponding to the host computer recognized in step S2 is selected from the stored host identification characters.

When the host identification character is determined in this way, next, a paper feed tray for supplying the partition paper is selected (step S7). As a specific method, there is a method of selecting a sheet size as a reference, and a method of presetting a specific paper feed tray as a tray for partition paper. In the former method, for example,
The size of the partition paper is determined to be equal to or greater than both the size of the paper of the previous document and the size of the paper of the new document recognized in step S3. Select as For example, as the sizes of the sheets 15a, 15b, 15c, B5, A4, B
If the paper size of the previous document and the new document is both B5, the divider is A4. If the size of the document is A4 or smaller, the divider is B4. If the size of the document is B4 or smaller, the divider is B4. B4 and so on. Alternatively, the maximum paper size may be determined in advance as the partition paper size regardless of the size of the document paper. For example, in the above example, B4 is the partition paper size. In the latter selection method, for example, the paper feed tray 13a is determined in advance as a paper feed tray for partition paper, and a sheet of the maximum size is placed on the tray 13a. Put the paper.

After the partition paper tray is determined in this way, one sheet of paper as the partition paper is fed from the selected paper feed tray, and a predetermined position (for example, a corner of the paper) of the partition paper is fed. The control data for performing a series of operations of printing the host identification character selected in step S6 on the most visible portion such as the edge and the edge) and discharging the partition paper onto the paper output tray 17 is created (FIG. Step S
8), which is transmitted to the engine controller 9 (step S9). As a result, the engine controller 9 operates the print engine 11 to feed one sheet of partition paper, print the host identification character thereon, and transfer the partition paper to the previous document on the discharge tray 17 as described above. Discharge up.

Thereafter, processing for performing printing in accordance with the print information is started. First, control data for performing document printing according to the print information is created (step S).
10), and transmits this to the engine controller 9 (step S11). As a result, the engine controller 9 operates the print engine 11 to execute printing of a document. Then, when the transmission of all the control data ends, this processing ends (step S12). Steps S10 to S12 are normal operations that have been performed conventionally.

In step S5, when it is determined that there is no header code in the middle of the document unit,
The process immediately enters step S10 to continue printing the document.

Through the above series of processing, the paper discharge tray 17
Between multiple documents stacked on top of each other, paper of a size equal to or larger than the paper size of the document is sandwiched as a divider, or a special divider with a different color or paper quality is sandwiched, and
Since the characters for identifying the host computer are printed on the partition paper, the user can find a desired document from the stack of documents at a glance.

[0028]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Since the partition paper is sandwiched between a plurality of units of documents discharged from the printer, the user can easily distinguish each document.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of an embodiment of a page printer to which the present invention is applied.

FIG. 2 is a view showing print information added with a header code input from a host computer to the printer of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating processing of an image controller in the printer of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 page printer 3a, 3b, 3c host computer 5a, 5b, 5c interface 7 image controller 9 engine controller 11 print engine 13a, 13b, 13c paper feed tray 15a, 15b, 15c paper 17 paper discharge tray 19 discharged document

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] And receiving print information from a host computer.
Document identification of a printer that feeds one type of paper selected from a plurality of types of paper prepared in advance, prints a document in accordance with the print information, and discharges the printed paper to a predetermined paper discharge location In the apparatus , when the print information is received, a document unit detection unit that checks whether or not a new document unit is started, and when the result of the check is affirmative, before executing document printing according to the print information, select one type of paper as a partition sheet from the plurality kinds of sheets fed, and a partition sheet supply means for discharging the sheet discharge place, when receiving the print information, the host computer which transmitted the print information Host identification means for identifying a host, and host identification information predetermined for each host computer.
Information from the storage means, and the host identification information stored in the storage means.
The host computer identified by the host identification means.
Select the corresponding host identification information, and
Identification information printing means for printing on a cut sheet , and wherein the document unit detection means comprises: an interface having received the print information;
Compare with the interface that received the information and
Interface, the start of a new document unit
And if they have the same interface,
A predetermined header added to the information to indicate the document unit
Start of new document unit based on data code
A discharged document identification device for determining whether or not the document is discharged. The apparatus according to the claim 1, wherein the partition sheet supply means, and paper size as the previous document printing, the sheet having both of a size greater than the paper size used in the current document printing A discharged document identification apparatus, wherein the discharged document is selected as the partition paper. 3. The discharged document identification apparatus according to claim 1 , wherein said partition paper supply means selects a predetermined type of paper from among the plurality of types of paper as the partition paper. apparatus.